“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for
his friends.”
(John 15:13)
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the
church and gave himself up for her . . .
(Ephesians 5:25)
Since most of us will never be called upon to actually
sacrifice our physical lives for our friends or wives or anyone else, these
commands tend to sound theoretical. But there are other ways of sacrificing
that are more difficult even than death, because they are inward and
long-lasting. The sacrifice of my right to express my feelings is one such
sacrifice.
A very moving illustration of emotional sacrifice is
depicted in the film Life is Beautiful,
directed by and starring the enigmatic Roberto Benigni. The film was in the
theaters in 1997, ten years after our return from Italy. At that time, the
dialogue was only in Italian with English sub-titles. My wife and I, still conversant
in Italian, could get the full impact of the humor, as well as the horror, of
the film. We were a few seconds ahead of the rest of the audience in laughing
at the comedic lines (if the audience got the Italian humor at all). But the
serious, heart-wrenching drama could not be missed.
The film is about sacrifice. Guido Orefice, a Jewish
bookseller in Italy, is deported with his young son, Giosuè, and his wife, Dora,
to a concentration camp, where Dora is separated from her husband and son. In
order to protect his son both physically and emotionally, Guido convinces the
boy that what they are experiencing is an elaborate game in which Giosuè will
earn points for performing certain tasks his father assigns him. Extra points
will be earned for hiding from the guards. The boy who earns 1,000 points first
will be awarded a real tank – not a toy one.
The father maintained the charade until the end, sacrificing
his own “right” to be horrified and depressed over their plight. The final task
assigned to Giosuè was that he hide in a steel box until he could hear no
noises. Giosuè caught a glimpse of his father being led away by German soldiers
to be shot, but the father maintained the game by his expression. As the boy
emerged from the box, an American tank rolled into the camp, and the tank
commander helped the boy up onto it. As the tank rolled past freed prisoners, Giosuè
saw his mother and was reunited with her. The final words of the film are the
voice of the adult Giosuè paying tribute to his father’s sacrifice.
Sacrificing feelings is a difficult task. We claim our right
to our feelings above all else. Perhaps we feel it is hypocritical to “act” as
though we’re happy when we’re not. We can find ample justification for letting
people know how we feel. But sacrificial love, agape love, means subordinating my feelings and my desires to the
needs of others. I have found that sacrifice to be difficult, but I’m
determined to call on God’s grace to help me demonstrate it.
